Animal Smells In Wine

How "Old McDonald" sent me down a rabbit hole that ended in a 16 century old world poem.

For my subscribers: my deepest, darkest secret. This morning as I combed the news for the Wine Industry Insight Newsletter, “Old McDonald” played through my head. Over and over.

Strange as it was, I found reprieve in this change of pace—it’s not every day that I’m spared the existential grief that hours of reading headlines can summon.

Then I thought: this is no mockery of the realness of adulting through a climate crisis, no! This is a sign from the wine gods. Maybe Dionysus themself is tasking me with this: writing about animal smells in wine. So I canceled the therapy appointment my lullaby-on-loop scared me to make, and got to writing this for you.

Let’s do animals! Wait…no.

Some of these aromas are polarizing (barnyard), some are used for shock value but also eerily accurate (cat piss), and others are considered a disgrace (bad wet dog!).

But the thing about smelling wines on the reg is that you’ll come to love the most unhinged assortment of aromas. Bring the gasoline with mango and gardenia. On leather-wrapped plums, on wooden cabinet, on crayons!